Up in smoke
Don’t let Jesus become a dirty little habit
April 7, 2007
Joshua Gregg
I am considering more and more that a smoker’s relationship with his cigarettes has many of the same qualities as my relationship with Christ.
Imagine for a moment that you smoke. Consider the time you take to smoke a cigarette or two. You stop, light up, inhale and exhale for seven or ten minutes. Your brain is exhilarated and yet at ease; you are no longer primed toward the distress of the present. You sigh and end the ritual by crushing the tiny embers under your foot or into an ashtray. As you go about your day, the memory of the cigarette is in your breath, on your fingertips. You notice some people glance at you with displeasure. But such is what you are: a smoker. And as a smoker, you understand that there will always be a new beginning: a new pack to open, a fresh cigarette to smoke. The beginning is constant, stable and safe.
This is very similar to my relationship with God, in that I constantly begin and end my experiences with Christ as if my relationship with Him were a vice.
I know this, but my actions do not display this faith. I desire more control and stability in myself. So often I say, “let His will be done” when I only act out of the comfort of easy social situations and places where my ideas are understood and accepted. When I don’t think my ideas will be agreeable, I shy away from sharing myself and monitor my behaviour to confirm that it is acceptable. We say, “Abba, come,” but in the comfort of our own beds and in the arms of other believers. So easily I can think of the ways Christ is all-powerful, but so easily I shy away from reliance upon such power. I want the comfort within myself, the control, the security. I want to be free to light up, inhale and exhale, crush and only remember the time spent, not continually live with it.
I am not trying to recreate the common frustration that Christians ought to behave differently than they do. A rabbi sat with me several days ago, and expressed that he felt very nervous, being a Jew on a Christian campus. He explained how many times Christians have condemned his presence in their church, and refused to serve him. How absurd, I thought.
The rabbi’s story made me think of how poorly Christians handle the reality of their own humanness and the humanity of others. Divinity views humanity from afar. I myself often pretend I am not inadequate or fatally flawed. I turn to the folly of others and look for the ways I am unlike them.
We attach ourselves to purity, to the likeness of Christ, to renewal and to strength. We believe the presence of darkness and doubt is weakness. But as a human being, I often feel my relationship with God is a nonexistent, impossible, childish, immature sort of addiction. As a human being, I tumble and fail. As a follower of Christ, I have found that it is worthwhile to be a human being. As Paul writes, “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10).
Drawing from the analogy of a smoker once more, the more we smoke, the more we realize our body is decaying. Smoking kills. I have found that my relationship with Christ has been this agonizing, sweet death, from which I have become a bitter cynic. I want to run to my inadequacy, humanity, and death. Death that is understanding and full of life. Not the imposter death, not the escapist death that I often hear about. The true death: the understanding death; the death full of grace. Grace and beginning - who are silent, and who don’t speak much, but who are present in the brokenness, waiting for us, patiently.
Now you go...
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